Happy Anniversary!

We were thrilled that (most of) the family was able to get together to celebrate Grandma and Grandpa's 60th anniversary. We planned on going to dinner to celebrate, but first we had to have a champagne toast and drink to the happy couple. As always, the sisters know how to throw a shin-dig, so the room was decked out!


Some important parts that were not to be missed:


The bride and groom are the same from their wedding cake 60 years ago. The bride and groom come out and Grandma and Grandpa take a cake picture for the major anniversaries. They have a wall of cake pictures in their home - its fun to see their wedding picture, compared to their 25th anniversary picture compared to their 50th anniversary picture, etc. So of course, we had to have another one!

The champagne flutes in the background are from their 50th anniversary hoopla and were brought out, as well as the cake cutting knife and server.


Linda, Grandma, Grandpa and Nancy - aren't they cute!

I have no idea what Luke did that was so funny, but they all thought it was pretty funny.


Cheers!



"Cheers me too, Daddy! Cheers me too!"

Nancy was so sweet to put together a DVD of photos from the past 60 years and gave one to each family. Luke, of course, loved seeing himself on tv, so we watched it a few times.

Old family 8 mm filmstrips were put onto DVD as well, which we watched. How fun it was to see everyone running around and having fun in the 1960s! Todd and I got a big ol' kick at seeing film from Disneyland in the early days!

Swimming is for chumps.

Luke does not enjoy the lack of freedom that swimming brings, so he was off with Great-Grandpa to play on the playground and kick/throw the soccer ball. I loved just watching the two of them together - they are truly two peas in a pod!

Luke's belly laughs get me every time. You can't help but laugh along with him.


No standing still for pictures Mommy!

(most photos of Luke involve him running out of the shot.)

Great-Grandpa is so much fun!

Swimming with Grandma

When we went to Clearlake a few weekends ago to celebrate the Great-Grandparents 60th anniversary, we started our Saturday early by heading down to the pool. Luke has gotten a lot better in the water since we had swim lessons. He's still not super comfortable, so walked across the wading pool with Grandma. After hanging out with Grandma, he spend some time with Great-Grandpa and Daddy in the big pool, riding around on a pool lounge. It was a wonderful way to start the Saturday, something relaxing that we never get to do.

Grandma, Great-Grandma and Great Auntie Nancy

Luke mostly just wanted to play with his cars. Imagine that!

This weekend was truly a vacation, as Grandma and the Great Grandparents took over Luke detail!

Todd and Mama Bickel

Yum-o

Luke is one chatty kid - which Todd and I both love. As we are both teachers, we are adamant about correct pronounciation of words, speaking in complete sentences, etc.

But there are more difficult times than others . . .

Example:

We had burritos the other night, as well as chips and guacamole. Luke asked politely for a chip (bless him and his good manners!) and then asked for "dip." We asked him to politely ask for the guacamole.

"Paca-mo-me please Mama."

*don't giggle don't giggle don't giggle*

"Sweetie, its GUA-CA-MO-LE."

"Yes Mama, paca-mo-me. Please."

I decided to let it go, but he is awfully cute. And I figure I have to write all this stuff down or I will inevitably forget it.

Cousin Time!

We were so excited to spend the morning with the cousins at Happy Hollow. Luke simply adores his big cousins and will do anything and everything they want him to do, including but not limited to riding on roller coasters, for better or worse.

Luke riding on his first roller coaster will be a whole other post with a fun video, including cute quotes like: "I don't want it Momma! I don't want it!"

But the most fun to watch was both kids eagerly taking Luke's hand, one on either side and leading him around. It was nice to watch their interaction - they just love each other. I'm thrilled that we live close to them and Luke has the opportunity to spend time with them.

It all begins and ends with family.

Summer School.

I don't really know how to say this any other way, but . . . well . . . Summer School sucks. On so many levels. I don't know if I can do this another summer. I might need a different summer job.

The long and the short of it is that the art curriculum is a little shafty, so I find myself having the "fill in" quite a bit where needed.

So for circus week, one of my fellow Summer School teachers gave me the idea of having the kids sculpt a seal for one of my art days. What makes art difficult is that it needs to work for ages 5 to 10, yet needs to vary in complexity, as well as not kill me with a huge volume of materials, time, etc. So it was great, the seal was awesome, the kids loved it. Sweet. Later in the week, I had them make a ringmaster using a pattern and a toilet paper tube. Please note: it is apparently a Willy Wonka pattern and only one kid called me on it. Suddenly I had a scene just begging for a background so I threw together a background showing the inside of the circus. On the back I colored a striped tent (versitility!). I totally loved it! The kids loved it! It was a huge, fun project!


This is the last week of Summer School (let the angels sing!), though next week begins training week for the new school year. I am hoping that I can set up my classroom in an expedient manner to allow for some break, however small it happens to be. Currently, my normal classroom is used as a storage/curriculum sorting area, so I won't be able to get in there for a while. *sigh* Here's hoping that I can get all this mess moving!

Party People!

There will be a special post for Brent and Sam's wedding, as it was a special day, but for now, we'll go with the "party people" post for now.

The last few weekends have been super busy, one wedding after another for the Mensday men weddings. Anytime the Mensday guys get together, you know there's going to be some serious dancing and serious fun.

Mostly, I'm just serious tired. *yawn*

Beautiful bride Sam with bridesmaids Allison and me.


Me with Sarah

Todd and Wags getting down wit their bad selves. (Yup, that's a HAT on Todd's head.)


This last weekend was Kate and Uriah's wedding up in the Santa Cruz mountains. The weather was beautiful, as was the view.

Todd, Crock and Alli

The menfolk enjoying the view

Aren't we cute?

We were sitting at the Vegas table. Mr. and Mrs. Vegas? You betcha.

Yeah, the boys had a really good time.
Trevor, Todd and Crock

Crafty crafty girl

My crafting has been on the backburner as of late, so when the opportunity arose to get some craftin' in - I was all over it!

First up:

With our new table, I've been placemat crazy! I haven't been able to find any placemats that I really love. Since I had taken a tablecloth I love and made it into a tablerunner, I thought I would take the extra fabric and make some placemats out of it.

I've made one. Here it is. Revel in its glory.

For Brent and Sam's wedding, Luke was a ring bearer and I really desperately wanted him to wear a short sleeve button down shirt as it was an outdoor wedding in July. For the life of me, I could not find one. Not for a toddler. (I guess they're lame. Whatever.)

So I bought the long sleeve shirt, cut off the sleeves and stitched it up. Go ahead, revel.

Also for Brent and Sam's wedding, they wanted me to paint a mailbox with their wedding invite design on it for their super creative guest-book-y thing using postcards instead of a book. Then the guests would put the postcards in the beautifully painted mailbox.

Todd was so sweet, he primed and painted the basecoat for me, so it was able to be a wedding gift from both of us.

I am certainly not by any means a graphic artist, but I thought I did a pretty nice job.

Its all getting me primed and ready to get creative for my classroom in the next few weeks!

My world.

So ask anyone that has spoken to me recently and they will know that my world currently revolves around potty training. And in all honesty, we really haven't started yet, so I suppose it really revolves around the threat (or fear) of the potty training.

Luke is actually really good about sitting on the potty, hanging out on the potty or peeing in his diaper while sitting on the potty.

He's reading about major inventions of the 20th century, like airplanes and morse codes and stuff. I know he's not really reading it, but at least he's looking diligently at it and the book is facing the right direction. Go team!